‘Jena 6’ protesters descend on Louisiana town

[ladiesbballcoach]

Well let me just say this. I was born and have spent a good deal of my life in southern Alabama so I have witnessed my fair share of racism both to and from African Americans. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that's been said to me over the Confederate flag sticker on the back of my truck. None of that bothers me though cause I just look at it as 'wow what an idiot' you know? I mean come over here and let me give you a history lesson, haha. But yes I can honestly say that if I was black I would be a strong enough person that just the sight of a noose hanging from a tree branch wouldn't bother me.

Have you witnessed or had members of your family hung from a tree by the KKK? Being called a few names is much, much difference from a child watching their father hung in the tree in the front yard of their home. From seeing their father drug out of the home beaten and maybe to never return.

 

Those nooses dredged up some painful memories, I am sure.

[ladiesbballcoach]

This is a situation where it could've maybe been resolved had the super intendent jumped in and said "hey you're wrong mr. principle, these kids need to be punished for their actions."

 

Instead we have this, and their is alot of devils advocate being played in this one I think.

Read the story. Principal asked for expulsion. Superintendent and the Board overruled the Principal.

[4chs]

Im failing to see why there is any type of protesting going on in this situation. What are the people there protesting ?

 

Bottom line there is no right in this situation. Only wrong. The white kids were wrong (and very ignorant) for hanging the nooses and the group of black kids were wrong for jumping the white kid. In the end both sides were wrong and both should be harshly punished for their actions. Seems pretty simple to me.

 

Because the charges filed against the 6 are exorbitant.

[Kingfish Stevens]

I have read all of the above posts and find them to be about what one would expect.

 

For the sake of discussion, let's take a less emotional look at the situation. I'm sure it will upset a few of you but maybe you need to consider all possibilities rather than merely jumping on the usual bandwagon.

 

I do not agree with the actions of the three white students. The nooses were uncalledfor. On the other hand, it is rather ridiculous to say that they committed a crime. Emotion cannot rule the legal process and, at worst, the three are guilty of littering by hanging the nooses from the tree. They are also guilty of being insensitive and should receive some measure of discipline for that. However, being insensitive is not yet a crime. Of course, many reactionaries want to make it that way. Unfortunately, they seem to be making headway but God forbid if they succeed. We will have even more legal chaos than is now the case.

 

Please keep in mind that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. Also remember that a liberal US Supreme Court extended this to freedom of expression. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that the actions of the three, though unacceptable, are protected by the present day interpretation of the First Amendment.

 

Much hoopla has been raised over the idea of a hate crime. Louisiana has a hate crime law. However, in reality, there was no crime. It should also be questioned as to whether or not the designation of some crimes as hate crimes is constitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection. To say that committing a crime against A should be punished more than committing a crime against B is saying that B is not receiving the equal protection of the applicalbe law. The assumption is that A's head is worth more than is B's head. That doesn't sound to me to be the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment. In this age of political correctness, I feel sure that no court would have the courage to declare socalled hate crimes as unconstitutional. However, that doesn't change the fact.

 

Finally, to dismiss the beating of the white student by six black students is obscene. There was actual bodily injury in the beating. That, indeed, is a crime. And, for those of you who support the flawed logic of hate crime designations, the beating undoubtedly would fall into that category. Odd that I hear no one else on BGP or in the media pointing that out. But, why am I not surprised.

[cshs81]

Please keep in mind that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. Also remember that a liberal US Supreme Court extended this to freedom of expression. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that the actions of the three, though unacceptable, are protected by the present day interpretation of the First Amendment.

 

.

 

I'm curious to hear how you see this applying to this particular situation.

[75center]

Snopes.com has a good summary of the story. Cuts through a lot of the misinformation going around.

[Covercorner]

Read an article that one of the black students at the school was punched and assaulted with beer bottles at an all white party a few days before the main beating incident took place. The white students were charged with simple battery, and then the black students later were charged with attempted murder, using a deadly weapon.

[Captain Morgan]

Have you witnessed or had members of your family hung from a tree by the KKK? Being called a few names is much, much difference from a child watching their father hung in the tree in the front yard of their home. From seeing their father drug out of the home beaten and maybe to never return.

 

Those nooses dredged up some painful memories, I am sure.

No and I doubt any of those 13-16 year olds down in Jena have either.

[ladiesbballcoach]

No and I doubt any of those 13-16 year olds down in Jena have either.

Has their parents? Have the grandparents who have relayed those stories down the generations? Have they heard from eyewitness account of aunt Edna who watched their father pulled out of the house. Bet some have. And it is still too real to them.

[Captain Morgan]

Has their parents? Have the grandparents who have relayed those stories down the generations? Have they heard from eyewitness account of aunt Edna who watched their father pulled out of the house. Bet some have. And it is still too real to them.

I know how things work in small town Louisiana and I can say the Civil Rights Movement definately didn't make it everywhere so I will give you this one.

 

The nooses doesn't give the 6 black kids clearance to go whoop up on one white boy who had nothing to do with em though. That's got "hate crime" written all over it whether anybody likes it or not and they will be punished for it. Now if they went after the football players who hung the nooses and it was a 6-6, 6-8 fight or whatever it would have been and whooped them, I wouldn't see a problem with it. But no they singled out one boy strictly because he was white and took out their anger over the nooses on him.

[Kingfish Stevens]

I'm curious to hear how you see this applying to this particular situation.

 

 

If I need to explain that to you, you are past the point of reason. The application should be obvious to anyone familiar with the US Constitution and the facts of this matter. Of course, my post does not rely upon the dual evils of emotion and political correctness.

[sportsfan41]

Read the story. Principal asked for expulsion. Superintendent and the Board overruled the Principal.

 

I'd read several angles but none ever mentioned that the principle had tried to expel just that the kids weren't. Gosh no wonder it's such a mess.

[letabrotherspeak]

Read an article that one of the black students at the school was punched and assaulted with beer bottles at an all white party a few days before the main beating incident took place. The white students were charged with simple battery, and then the black students later were charged with attempted murder, using a deadly weapon.

 

Thereinlies the pickle. The difference in the two charges. The public defender did not call on a single witness to Mychal Bell during his court date.

[letabrotherspeak]

Please keep in mind that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. Also remember that a liberal US Supreme Court extended this to freedom of expression. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that the actions of the three, though unacceptable, are protected by the present day interpretation of the First Amendment.

Yes, but their are limits to each of the above.

Sir Oliver Wedall Holmes said it best. "The right to swing one's fist, ends at the tip of the other man's nose."

One's rights in/on school grounds is further limited.

One has to look at the society of Jena...the culture of Jena, which most of us have no frame of reference to regarding the divide in that community. The hanging of the noose is a blatant symbol of "lynching"...it is inflammatory and intimidating.

The perpatrators of the symbolic event should have been punished much more severely.

In sertain societies a student could wear a shirt with the Confederate Stars and Bars, and get away with it, however a symbol such as the "noose" in Jena takes on a whole new spectrum.

As for the beating...attempted murder with a "tennis shoe"? Yet in two seperate incidents, one of the Jena 6 (Robert Bailey) was beaten by more than one individual with beer bottles and the kid that threw the first punch was charged with simple battery and probation. The next day, Bailey ran into another white kid who was at the party, and the guy pulled a firearm on Bailey, and Bailey was able to take the gun away from him after they tangled. Bailey was charged with theft of a firearm.

The following Monday, Justin Barker, who was friends with the kids who hung the noose, taunted Bailey at lunch, then was hit from behind and then kicked by six students unconscious (there are witnesses who dispute the beating).

That qualifies as second-degree attempted murder?

[SportsGuy41017]

Thank you 75Center for posting the snopes.com website, it explains a lot and throws out a lot of false information.

 

Not sure about the relation between all the events, but the black students sitting under the tree and the nooses happened around September 1st of that year, and the "Jena 6" event took place over three months later. The US District attorney also believes their is no connection, and that a lot had happened between the two incidents. "There were three months of high school football in which they all played football together and got along fine."

 

"The "Jena 6" attack took place on 4 December 2006 at the high school. During a fight that broke out in the lunchroom between a white student and a black student, the white student was hit from behind, knocked out, then set upon by other black students who proceeded to kick and stomp his "lifeless" body as he lay unconscious on the floor. The victim, Justin Barker, spent about three hours in an emergency room being treated for injuries to his head and face.

 

That assault resulted in five of the black teens being charged, as adults, with attempted second-degree murder and given bonds ranging from $70,000 to $138,000. A sixth teen was charged as a juvenile. Two of the Jena 6 defendants had been part of the threesome involved in the Gotta-Go Grocery incident, which is why their bonds were significantly higher: the bonds so assigned covered both sets of charges."

 

Now a little on case of the first black student, Bell:

 

"Prosecutors in his case revealed the teen had been convicted as a juvenile for attacking someone a year prior to the Jena 6 assault, then committed three more crimes while on probation for that one, which meant the Jena 6 verdict marked his fifth conviction for violent crimes. These prior acts were taken into account by the judge when the question arose of reducing Bell's $90,000 bond."

 

Bell's case was tried before an all white jury, as no blacks called for jury duty showed up for jury selection.

 

Now I am not sure about them being charged with attempted second-degree murder, maybe the aggravated second-degree assault, But then again, I am not sure how I would submit a charge where a person was hit from behind and laid "lifeless" unconscious on the floor while up to 6 people where still kicking and stomping him, did they not notice he wasn't moving and was unconscious? If so then what where they trying to do? TRYING to look at this from the outside and being objective, I could see the POSSIBILITY of attempted murder, may be a slight possibility, but it is possible, but I am not in the position to judge what matters are considered to make something an assault or attempted murder.

 

Now, If Bell was charged with a violent crime for attacking someone as a juvenile a year before, and while on probation for that crime violated said probation by committing three more violent crimes, then committing the Jena 6 crime, what is wrong with sentencing him to an aggravated second-degree assault charge? If all of this is true, when do you say enough is enough and you have to pay for all of your violent crimes? I thought that probation was to give you another chance, and if you violated that probation then you get the full force of the punishment(s).